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IT took Martin Scorsese’s documentary film “No Direction Home” three and a half hours to cover Bob Dylan’s career from 1961 to 1966. So when director Todd Haynes set out to make a movie about the songwriter’s life, it’s no wonder he had to resort to some strange machinations.

In “I’m Not There,” the mercurial singer is played by six different actors – including Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale and Richard Gere – five of whom have a separate identity apart from “Bob Dylan.” Each represents a different part of Dylan’s life, with pseudonyms that reflect his artistic choices at the time.

The film gets an advance screening at the New York Film Festival in October (tickets go on sale Sept. 9) before opening in theaters Nov. 21. Meanwhile, The Post got a sneak peek at the six-string Dylan.

BLOOD ON THE TRACKS

Era: The uneven ’70s

Character: Billy

Actor: Richard Gere

Telling details: It’s Dylan on the set of Sam Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” in which the singer played “Alias,” a member of Billy’s gang (inset). Dylan wrote the soundtrack, which included the classic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” But that was a high point among several muddled albums, including “Self Portrait” and “Planet Waves.” In 1975, however, he’d make “Blood on the Tracks,” his best record of the decade. It included classics such as “Idiot Wind,” “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Shelter From the Storm.”

SELF PORTRAIT

Era: Unclear

Character: Arthur

Actor: Ben Wishaw

Telling details: In one of the trippier aspects of Haynes’ film, Dylan takes on the guise of 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud. The significance? In his 2004 autobiography, “Chronicles,” Dylan recalls being struck by one of Rimbaud’s most famous phrases, “Je est un autre” (“I is another”). For an artist so notoriously vague about his ideas and identity, it would make a handy epitaph.

SONG FOR WOODY

Era: Early Greenwich Village, 1961

Character: Woody

Actor: Marcus Carl Franklin

Telling details: “This Machine Kills Fascists” is an obvious nod to Dylan’s idol, Woody Guthrie, who had the slogan written on his guitar. In 1961, Dylan moved to New York and made a pilgrimage to meet the ailing Guthrie in New Jersey. Dylan wore the same style cap, another Guthrie trademark, on the cover of his ’61 self-titled debut.

THE FREEWHEELIN’ BOB

Era: Emerging folk icon, 1963

Character: Jack

Actor: Christian Bale

Telling details: The brown suede jacket, which Dylan wore on the cover of “Freewheelin’,” and the mod studio background give it all away. It’s Bob just as he began to be known for writing his own songs, such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” The character’s name is likely a reference to his friend and mentor, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Bale also appears in the movie as John (as in John the Baptist), who represents Dylan’s dabbling in Christianity during the release of 1979’s “Slow Train Coming.”

SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES

Era: Dylan goes electric, 1965

Character: Jude

Actor: Cate Blanchett

Telling details: The Ray-Ban Wayfarers, scraggly hair and Stratocaster tell us that this Dylan has just released the electrified “Bringing It All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde on Blonde,” inspiring outrage among many of his fans. The name Jude is fitting because Jude the Apostle, martyred for his beliefs, is frequently mistaken for Judas, the name one derisive British fan shouted at Dylan during a 1966 concert. Also, the 1895 novel “Jude the Obscure” offers both an apt description of Dylan and a parallel in the life of author Thomas Hardy, who was so harshly criticized for his vulgar tale of unwed love that he didn’t write another novel.

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER

Era: Biblical Bob, 1968

Character: Bob Dylan

Actor: Heath Ledger

Telling details: At this point, Bob’s already crashed his motorcycle, has taken to reading the Bible and has spawned four kids with wife Sara (Charlotte Gainsbourg). That may just be future Wallflowers leader Jakob in the papoose. Ledger sports the same facial hair and short haircut that Dylan wore at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969, after releasing “John Wesley Harding” and “Nashville Skyline.”